Fell and Whiteley retrieved the situation, the latter hitting three sixes in his 60-ball knock before being bowled by Crook, and Shaaiq Choudhry weighed in late on with an unbeaten 30.

Northants, who beat Gloucestershire at Cheltenham in their opening game, lost Richard Levi lbw to Mitchell McClenaghan for a duck from the fifth ball of their reply and none of their top four reached double figures.

Willey (29) and Crook (23) made useful contributions with the bat, but the former was caught at deep mid-wicket off Mitchell's first delivery, and after Choudhry had bowled Duckett, the Worcestershire skipper worked his way through the tail to record his best one-day figures.

Olly Stone was last to go, caught by Alex Kervezee off Mitchell for 21, as Northants failed to extend their innings beyond the 39th over.

Northants head coach David Ripley:

"It was the old game of two halves. At 25 overs they were 84-4 and I was disappointed that they ended up getting 270, we should've kept that to 230.

"We were well ahead of the rate at the halfway stage, but were eight wickets down and it's impossible to win from there.

"There was some good stuff in there, but when we were bad we was awful and it was quite a heavy defeat."

Worcestershire captain Daryl Mitchell:

"It was nice to get the victory, but I thought we were below par for our standards, which is the sign of a decent side.

"These 10.30am starts, lose the toss and getting stuck in it always does a bit and we lost a few early wickets and I thought we threw a few away in the back end of the middle period which meant we weren't able to utilise the fielding restrictions.

"Getting those early wickets was a key thing. The lads bowled pretty well up front and bowled nice, tight lines and managed to make them play a lot."